1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to an information processing system, a service providing apparatus and method, an information processing apparatus and method, a recording medium, and a program and, more particularly, to an information processing system, a service providing apparatus and method, an information processing apparatus and method, a recording medium, and a program that are suitably for use in remotely controlling real devices by operating icons in a virtual space.
2. Background Art
A variety of methods have been proposed for remotely controlling electrical household appliances.
For example, Japanese Patent laid-open No. 2002-44765 discloses a system controlling, via the Internet, the electrical household appliances connected to a home network. For example, Japanese Patent No. 3016350 discloses an application program for personal computers using an agent for the interface for the remote control of electrical household appliances.
For the programs for remotely controlling electrical household appliances by using personal computers via a network, UPnP, Jini, and HAVi are known for example. These programs are middleware, and the user interface, which is operated by users for controlling their electrical household appliances, depends on other software programs using the middleware such as UPnP.
On the other hand, a method is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2001-154966 for example in which a plurality of users simultaneously participate in a virtual space built on a computer network represented by the Internet, thereby realizing realtime communication.
The related-art software programs for realizing user interfaces for the remote control of electrical household appliances have only the functions of controlling electrical household appliances, namely, practicality, in many cases. Therefore, these related-art software programs present a problem that they cannot satisfy the needs of users who demand not only practicality but also amusement on the software programs of their personal computers.
The related-art technologies of forming communication in a virtual spaces also presents a problem of the lack of close communication between users because the forming of communication is achieved by users' entering public, not private, spaces.